


The Birthday Present

by persnickett



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-01
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>--In which Dean is dyslexic, Sammy harbours an irrational obsession with canned food, our boys never do get their coffee, and Dean officially hates Sam’s present.<br/> ...</p><p>Sam had a life. A whole different, real, normal, (at least for Sammy) other life. One without a brother in it.<br/>So the day Sam came back from his morning coffee-run without coffee, and clutching a FedEx package with both gigantic hands like it was made of eggshells from the last of the dodos, maybe Dean overreacted. Maybe.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	The Birthday Present

Memory is a funny thing. Dean Winchester figured he had a pretty good memory. There were things he never forgot, like how to change a spark plug or to always check the safety before you start to clean a firearm. And never, under any circumstances, feed any kind of explosive to a demonic creature that appears to be made of slime. No matter how funny it may seem at the time, ectoplasm stains like a sunofabitch. The smell of charred swamp-thing doesn't exactly have the Axe effect, either. Sammy's birthday was one of the things Dean never forgot. And there were some birthdays that might have been better off forgotten.

But Dean's memory wasn't perfect. He could admit he forgot things from time to time. The name that went with the phone number on the bar napkin in his pocket, for example, or when y is a vowel and when it's something else. Then there was the one thing that Dean seemed to keep forgetting, no matter how many times the little reminders kept popping up; sharp little stabs of reality that burned for a second but never seemed to leave any mark, like drops of hot candle wax on your skin. Dean couldn't seem to remember that Sam had a life. A whole different, real, normal, (at least for Sammy) other life. One without a brother in it.

So the day Sam came back from his morning coffee-run without coffee, and clutching a FedEx package with both gigantic hands like it was made of eggshells from the last of the dodos, maybe Dean overreacted. Maybe.

"Hey, what’s that?" Dean swiped the package from between Sam's huge man-paws and held it up to his ear.  
"It's a package, Dean." Sam had the box back before Dean could even give it a proper shake, "And it's for me."  
"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock." Dean rubbed his arm; one of the man-paws had scored a pretty solid connection with his left shoulder. "And where the hell's my coffee?"  
"The vending machine is right down the hall, Dean. It won't kill you to get it yourself. You could even bring me a coffee for once, considering it's my birthday and all."  
 **Oh hell no.  
** "Yesterday was your birthday. You made me eat cheese fondue, remember? I think I might be lactose intolerant, by the way."  
"Yesterday I brought you coffee." Sam flopped down on his unmade bed. "And you're not lactose intolerant, you're a pig. You're supposed to share it, not order your own huge-ass pot of melted cheese."  
"You ate a whole huge-ass pot too."  
"Lucky my metabolism is still young enough to handle it." Sam stretched luxuriantly. He was staring down at the box that was now balanced on the flat surface of his 24-plus-a-day abs, but Dean could see his smug grin. **Smartass little bitch.**

 ****

 _Dean wasn't sure how old they were when their father had started the family tradition that the birthday boy got to pick what they had for dinner. Things were pretty predictable for a while; steak houses on Dad's birthday, pizza for Dean, "Chicken McNuggets!" Sammy would sing out from the front seat. On any other day but a birthday they'd both be in the back, with an imaginary territorial border drawn down the centre of the bench, because Dad couldn't take them fighting over the front. Birthdays all went relatively smoothly until the year Sammy turned 7 and insisted that they eat tomato soup. From a can._

"Besides,” Sam was saying, probably still talking about cheese, “You eat cheeseburgers all the time." Sammy never could let anything go.  
"Cheeseburgers have normal cheese on them, fondue is like...fancy cheese. Fancy shit doesn't agree with me."  
"Normal? The cheese you eat is day-glo orange, Dean. That's gotta be way worse for your system than a little bit of emmenthal." Sam still wasn't looking up at him. "One cream and two sugars, please." **Smartass.**  
"Little bitch." Dean was already closing the door behind him, but he didn't need to hear Sam to know the inevitable reply.  
"Fuckin' Jerk."  
Dean smiled to himself and went to get his little bi--brother a belated birthday coffee.

 _"A restaurant with cans of soup might be kinda hard to find, Sammy." They'd been driving for 4 hours without a stop and Dad's voice sounded gritty, tired. "Pick something else."  
"I can't."  
"C'mon Sammy," Dean put in, cajolingly, "You can pick anything; Chinese food, spaghetti. How 'bout McDonalds? Anything you want."  
"I don't know. I don't want anything else." Sam's voice took on a tremble that usually meant he was close to tears. Something akin to panic rose in Dean's 11-year-old chest. Dad sighed impatiently.  
"It's ok Dad," Dean said quickly; arguments got started this way. "We can have soup."  
"Dean..."  
"I'll cook it. We can get a room with a kitchen, right Dad?" **Please, it's Sammy's birthday.** "Stop for the night? I'm tired of being in the car." This last part was true, and Dean suspected he wasn't the only one._

 _It was a precedent Dean would come to regret setting. Every year it was something else that pretty much had to be home-made, which generally translated to “Dean-made” for the travelling Winchesters. Tuna salad sandwiches with celery, mushroom omlettes; Dean drew the line at cheese souffle. He was pretty sure Sammy didn't even know what a souffle was. They found frozen pie shells with a recipe for quiche on the box though, and Dean figured he could handle eggs and spinach._

Once Dean had a couple sips of caffeine in him, he realized something was wrong. Really wrong. Who the hell was FedExing Sam mystery packages at the goddamn Blue Bayou Motel in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, USA? They were wanted in 7 sates (Dean was wanted in 8), no one was supposed to know where they were. Unless it was Bobby. But if it was Bobby, why couldn't Dean check out the package? Maybe Sam was just being a brat, trying to piss Dean off. Still...something about the anonymous, clearly letterbomb-sized box had Dean's heart knocking erratically against his ribcage as he jogged the last few paces back to their room. His heart stopped acting up though, when he hammered on the door calling out, "Sammy!?" and heard only silence in reply. In fact, it felt like it had disappeared altogether.

 _Dean bought a package of 100 balloons when they stopped to pick up Sam's soup. Sam sat on the rough motel carpet and tried to blow them up while Dean heated the soup and fried bacon for Dad's grilled cheese. Sam got so red in the face struggling with the cheap latex that the vein in his forehead stood out. It was actually pretty funny until Dad showed him how to stretch the balloons out first to loosen them up. At first, Sammy couldn't tie knots in the ends once he got them inflated, either. He kept scrambling over to the bed where Dad lay with an arm thrown over his eyes, to tug at his flannel shirt for help. Sammy was a quick study though, and by the time they were ready to eat, at least 30 of the things were bobbing around underfoot; brightly coloured little globes of Sam's breath that seemed to weave ghostly paths across the floor of their own accord in the cramped, airless room._

Dean's chest felt tight and weirdly hollow, as he fumbled one-handed with the room key, finally tossing the coffee cups aside. He clattered through the door shoulder-first and started breathing again when he saw the room unscathed by letterbomb damage. Good thing he didn't panic.

The enigma box now lay abandoned on Sam’s bed, emptied of its mysterious contents. From the bathroom, the sound of running water accompanied by the familiar tap-tap-tap of Sam's razor against the side of the god-awful, freakin' _blue_ porcelain sink basin told Dean he had a couple minutes to case the room.

It took all of 2.5 seconds.

Sam had made sure of that. Apparently the package had included a greeting card, and Sam had placed it standing up on the rickety table between their beds. It stood proudly on display as if Sam might be about to bring guests through; as if this blue gingham and lace monstrosity of a hotel room was some kind of... Dean shook off the word _home_ , hovering in his mind like it was scrawled with a big black sharpie. It didn't belong there.

Still shaking his head as if he could clear it like an etch-a-sketch, Dean crossed the room and picked up the card.

 _  
The few years Sam had spent in California - the "Shatner years", Dean called them, after the name on his credit cards - were pretty uneventful for Dean. If you could call three minor daemons, a possessed Grizzly bear, something Dean couldn't pronounce that looked like it escaped from the Gremlin movies, and getting abducted by a satanic coven (twice) uneventful. Dad had wanted to keep an eye on Sammy - secretly of course, the stubborn bastard - and didn't like to stray too far outside Cali state lines. So Dean started working jobs by himself. It was his first taste of what hunting must have been like for Dad; the freedom to make reckless moves and not worry about putting your partner in the line of fire, the thrill of knowing that something that was literally spawned in hell was afraid of only one thing - you.  
_

 _Mostly though, Dean was surprised how freakin' weird it was being alone 24 hours a day. How his own voice started to sound strange in his ears when he spoke to people he met on the road. It seemed to have developed this gravelly quality as if it suffered from the lack of use. He sounded like Dad and that made Dean feel...well it made him feel. Period. And Dean wasn't sure he liked it._

 __  
_  
Not having Dad or Sam around made Dean tense, almost itchy. There was something unnatural about it, like eating a donut without coffee. Sure, it was better than nothing, but it was hard to want to bother when you knew what you were missing.  
_

 _And Dean wasn't an idiot. He knew that's what happened with Cassie; the reason they fought all the time, and why he'd tried to rush things with truths she wasn’t ready to hear. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, and Dean damn-well knew it. The hole in his life was Winchester-shaped, and no matter how hard he shoved, he couldn't force Cassie to fit, to be what he needed. Nobody else could be Sam._

 __The card had a cartoon cupcake with a candle stuck in it on the front. It was the trendy book-store kind, blank inside.

Sam,  
Zach and I will always remember what you and your brother did for us.  
Everyone misses you here and the gang all chipped in for your birthday gift. I figured you could use it with all those long hours in the car. Does that thing even have a CD player?  
Thanks again and Happy Birthday!  
Love,  
Beck

Love, Beck? Oh right, the goddamn shape-shifter in St. Louis. Blonde Becky. Kinda cute, but obviously not so smart. Especially about cars. Dean guessed there were some things you just couldn't learn in college, and made a mental note not to let Sam drive again for at least another couple of weeks. Dean's brow furrowed and he folded his arms over his chest. **Becky. Huh.**

 _Dean had never really mentioned Cassie to Dad. After things went south in such a big way, there didn't seem much point. And once Dad stopped asking for reports on his jobs, it was like no one knew Dean. No one knew where he came from, what he did, or where he went once he did it. He was just a guy in a bar, a wise-ass journalist, an insurance agent who asked too many stupid questions. Just passing through. Brushing past people's lives and never quite touching them, like the spirits he hunted, there and then gone. Handsome though._

 _It was almost like the Shatner years never happened for anyone but Dean. Like they were missing years, almost. He'd cut ties with his brother, found - and then lost - the only woman he'd ever loved, and discovered his father was missing persons fodder. Like he said, uneventful. At the end of those two years, none of it had changed Dean in the least. Naturally, he’d figured Sammy would still be the same, too._

Then Dean saw it. Just behind the card, on Sam's side of the table, the brushed silver casing gleaming quietly in the late morning sun that struggled its way through the painfully frilly curtains. **iPod. Cool.  
**  
Dean figured Becky must have asked her brother or some friends to load up the music, because most of the bands in the menu seemed to have something to do with cars; Dashboard Confessional, Death Cab for Cutie (Dean clicked very deliberately past a song called _Brothers on a Hotel Bed_ ). Maybe college music wouldn't be so bad, after all.

One bar of the droopy, whining voice was all it took to remind Dean he was a classics man, through and through. He pulled the ear buds out so fast, they might as well have been contaminated with that demonic Croatoan virus-thing, and gave a deliberate shudder. **There are roads left in both of our shoes? What does that even mean?  
**  
By the time Sam came out of the bathroom, Dean was sitting on his own bed with his arms crossed. He could never figure out why Sam took so long in there, it wasn’t like he could actually grow any facial hair anyway.  
"How'd she find us?"  
"What?" Sam was rubbing his damp hair with one of the scratchy blue motel towels, and he still had a smudge of shaving cream clinging to his earlobe. "Who?"  
"Your little girlfriend, Becky."  
Sam sighed and hung the towel on the back of a chair. "She's not my..."  
"You don't get it, do you Sammy?" Dean interrupted, climbing off the bed and standing to face Sam. "We are on the run here, man. We are actual fugitives from the goddamn law."  
"I know that, Dean."  
"Oh really? Because you sure as hell aren't acting like it." Dean hated how his voice sounded. Loud, yeah, but pitched a little too high, bordering on hysterical. He kept going though, because he didn't know how to stop. "It's real cute that she wants to send you love notes and everything, but you can't just hand out our coordinates on your MySpot page or whatever the hell."  
"Dean, Becky was the one who emailed me and asked where she could contact me. And she’s a friend. She's known what we do for a year and hasn't told anyone."  
"That's great, Sam!" Dean was all-the-way shouting now, "That was a year when the cops thought I was dead and her kid brother wasn't wanted for murder. We didn't have Hendrickson on our tail, and you can bet your sweet ass he’s found out by now that she used to associate with you. How do you know he isn’t leaning on her? Threatening to open up her brother’s file again? Talking to friends is dangerous right now, Sam!"  
"What about Bobby?" Sam's voice was finally rising too, matching Dean's in volume and heat. "You tell him where we're at all the time."  
"That's different, dammit. Bobby's one of us, a hunter."  
"Being a hunter isn't what makes Bobby a friend, Dean! We trust Bobby because he cares about what happens to us, he helps us out." Sam had always been better at bellowing than Dean, his voice hit that low register he used when he was Not. Going to back. The fuck. Down. "Hell, Gordon's a hunter too, and you were all too eager to be bosom buddies until he tried to fucking _blow me up_."  
"Don't you pull that shit on me," Dean shot back, "I kicked his ass long before he ever caught up to us in Lafayette. Where he tied me up and held me at gunpoint, while we’re on the subject."  
"What is this really about, Dean?" Sam was really into it, now. His face was flushed, and he was leaning forward, getting in Dean's space. "Huh? Because it's not about hunting, and it sure as hell isn't about friggin' Gordon."  
"Aw, don't try to bullshit psychoanalyze this, Sam." He still had that stupid white smear of shaving cream under his ear, and Dean wanted to smack it off. "I told you what it's about. We're supposed to be laying low. We could go to jail, Sam. For real. We could end up separated, or hell, murder charges? One of us could get the death penalty. That means you don't send out birthday party invitations to your little playmates from school." 

"Dean.” Sam said, and the sudden quiet tone took Dean by surprise. It set him on edge in a way more yelling never could have done. “Is that what this is? You think an iPod nano is going to make me go back to school?”  
And, ok. Huh? That just proved it. It was so not the effing point that Dean was sure Sam just wasn’t getting this. This wasn’t about Becky, or California, or Dean having some kind of abandonment issue, it wasn’t, it was not, and this was getting touchy feely and Dean was just not doing this. He rubbed a hand over his face in frustration.  
“Sam.” Dean said, into his palm, “We’re hiding out and you passed around a freakin’ forwarding address.”  
“Look out that window, Dean. Tell me what you see.”  
Dean looked at Sam and felt several seconds tick by. Had Sam lost it altogether? Dean scanned the surroundings every single time they stopped somewhere. He knew what was out the window, nothing but the strip mall across the street, where they’d bought the microwavable burritos that passed for last night’s dinner. But Sam was giving him that look, so he turned to the window and saw exactly what he’d been expecting; the anemic mini-supermarket, XXX video rentals, and- 

“Fuck.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Post office, huh. Drop box?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Guessing you used an alias, too.”  
“Good guess.”  
Fuck. Dean felt kinda like he’d been slugged in the gut, like all the air was knocked out of him. The thing was, he still wanted to fight; to rant, and pace the room, and maybe knock a couple chairs over. Grab Sam by his big smug shoulders and shake him a little, maybe. But now he didn’t have the words. It was like he was deflated, like the fight had drained right out of him and was just buzzing around them in the air like a cloud of really aggro gnats.  
“Doesn’t matter.” Dean said, his voice falling oddly flat into the sudden silence, like he was talking into a vacuum. “I don’t care. We’re leaving tomorrow. We finish the job tonight and we shag ass, first thing.”  
“Fine. Whatever.”  
“Fine. And we’re not using this credit card any more, either.”  
“Fine.”  
And Dean was not going to say “Fine” again. No, no, and hell n-  
“MySpace.” Sam said, suddenly.  
“Hey, you were the one getting in my face…”  
Sam was laughing. **What the hell?**  
“No, MySpace.” Sam was still smiling, “The social networking website you were talking about. You said MySpot. Before.” **Oh Ferfucksake.** ”And nobody uses that anymore anyway. They have Facebook now.” It was a good thing he had such a huge brain, because Sammy sure wasted a sizable chunk of it memorizing some powerful useless shit.

Dean’s hand was already on the doorknob when Sam parroted “And where the hell’s my coffee?”  
Even with that reminder, Dean stumbled over the forgotten cups; quietly bleeding out their contents into a slick puddle on the indifferent hallway terazzo. He cursed to himself and went to get his brother a _very_ belated birthday coffee.

***

The job turned out to be not so much a pissed off spirit as four of them, and finishing it that night became finishing in the general vicinity of 0dark:30 the next morning. The sun was just coming up as Sam checked them out of the motel. Dean was just resting his eyes when a stacatto tapping sound had him jerking his forehead up off the Impala's steering wheel. Sam was bent almost double, peering in at Dean and rapping on the driver's side window. **Dude.**

"Watch it, Bigfoot, that's glass." Dean mumbled when Sam pulled the door open.  
"Get up, I'm taking the first shift."  
"Nah, I got it."  
"I'm not putting my life in your hands, you're wrecked. C'mon, move."  
"I'm fine! I wasn't even asleep, just bored, waiting for your slow ass."  
"Dean. You're drooling."  
 **Huh.  
**  
Sam waited until Dean climbed in the passenger side to point out that he also had _Chevrolet_ embossed into his forehead. Backwards.  
Dean obsessively checked the wheel in front of Sam. "It's not backward, it's perfect." He leaned over toward the side view mirror and damn near broke his nose bumping the window.  
"Watch it, Dean," Sam drawled, as he turned the engine over. "That's glass."  
Dean scowled, ignoring the itchy throbbing in his nose, and rubbed at his forehead.  
"Still not backward."  
"You're looking at it in a mirror, Dean. Tell me again about how you're not sleep deprived."  
"This from the guy who woke me up having nightmares three nights running."  
"Hey, I'm not the one with exhaustion-induced dyslexia."

Dean couldn't argue. He was exhausted. It wasn’t every day they bagged four ghosts, all haunting the site of an old schoolhouse that had burned to the ground trapping the teacher and most of her students inside. Dealing with angry spirits was one thing, but having to waste the spirits of kids – they were children, kids who had burned to death, and now they came at him screaming, with smoking, frizzled hair and scarred, melted skin – it threw Dean a little off his game. What was worse, was the fire meant there were no bones to burn, and he and Sam had been forced to search through all the family mausoleums to find the memorial items the spirits were bound to.

"Looks kinda cool," Dean said, still leaning on the window, but not really looking in the mirror anymore. "Maybe I should get a tattoo." He didn't need to look over, he could practically _hear_ Sam's eyes rolling from the other end of the bench seat.  
"Maybe you should get some sleep and quit distracting the driver."  
"I would, but someone keeps bitching at me." Dean complained happily, balling up his jacket under his cheek like a pillow and getting comfortable.  
"Just go to sleep, you jerk." Sam said, fondly. It was the last time for days that Sam called him a jerk, or called him anything, for that matter.

When Dean woke up, the first thing he noticed was the sound – or rather, the lack of it. He didn't hear the murmur of low-volume NPR, Sam's usual Dean's-a-heavy-sleeper tape deck rebellion. No snark about his snoring, or muttering the name of the girl he'd met at the bar the night before. He opened his eyes, and saw why. Sam already had his new gift fired up; stringy white cords traveling across his chest and disappearing up into his floppy hair like the tendrils of some brain-sucking cybernetic alien parasite. **Resistance is futile. Heh.**

Listening to nothing but the sweet rumble of his baby's engine was all well and good when it was purring him to sleep, in fact it was Dean's lullaby of choice. But it was no soundtrack for the Arkansas highway. Arkansas said Black Sabbath to Dean. Fine. He supposed he'd just have to find the tape himself. He rifled through his collection, realizing he'd gotten way too used to Sam's unsung role as constant all-request DJ. It took him a while to find it, but he worked his way right up to the top left corner and there it was, right under AC/DC and Aerosmith, wedged between Bad Company and Blue Oyster Cult. What the -- had Sam _alphabetized_ his cassette collection? Maybe the kid really did have OCD.

Dean flipped on the tape deck and slid the cassette home, but even when Dean cranked the volume a couple of notches, Sam didn’t seem to notice and kept his eyes fixed on the road. Dean nudged him, and waggled the tape case enticingly.  
“Dude. Heaven and Hell.”  
Sam shrugged. “Driver picks the music.” He shot Dean a pointed look and dialed up the volume on the private cry-baby concert in his ears.  
“Right. Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your Streisand marathon.”  
“Can’t hear ya, Dean.” Sam shouted theatrically, “Music’s too loud!”  
Dean quirked an eyebrow and shoved the case back in the box – right under ZZ Top.

Dean got through two Zepplins (IV and Physical Graffiti, sides one and two) and half a side of Whitesnake, before Sam deigned to speak again. If you came from a planet where grunting “Hungry?” and putting on the indicator for the next exit counted as speech.

At least Sam surfaced long enough to order breakfast, carefully winding the long cords around and around before putting the tiny machine into the pocket of his cargos. The waitress was pushing forty but she was blonde and busty, and Dean flirted with her on principle. He got a slice of blueberry pie “on the house”, for his trouble and when she came to take his plate Sam was still working on his first course. It was no wonder. Dean noticed for the first time what Sam had ordered: three eggs (over easy), bacon and sausage, a short stack of pancakes and an out-sized waffle that was almost completely obscured by the layers of peaches, strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate drizzle balanced precariously on top of it.

Sam put his fork down, looking annoyed, when Dean started tapping out the drum beat from _Fade to Black_ on the table.  
“If you’re bored, you could always make yourself useful.” Sam said, and extracted his laptop one-handed from his bag to thrust it across the table at Dean before shoving another forkful of overkill into his mouth.  
 **So I’m research-boy now?** Just happy for the change of scenery, Dean opened the laptop and waited for it to boot up.

Dean found them a possible job in Raleigh, which seemed far enough away from Vernon to stop.  
“Dude, I hope it’s zombies this time.” Dean said, peering around the screen to flash a grin at Sam before concluding, “That last one that broke your arm was totally hot.” even though Sam wouldn’t hear him, because he’d stuffed the insidious gadget into his ears again. **Un-freakin-believable.**

Dean had been a little surprised when he’d asked, “Dude, what’s your password?”, and Sam told him without hesitation. But he was downright stunned when the password turned out to be _Pottermania07_ and Sam actually admitted it. At this point, Dean was considering looking up a few curse-detection rituals to check Sam's nanopod or whatever he called it for, like, jedi mind-control voodoo.

**

The next morning, Dean woke up early to the sound of Sam's key in the lock, which meant coffee. He pried his eyes open and grunted "'Morning" as deliberately grumpily as humanly possible before it registered that something was seriously off. Willing his sleep-clouded eyes to focus in the dim room, he could make out Sam's hulking frame, bent slightly at the waist, with one hand grasping the room's single chair for support. Dean called him once, twice, and Sam didn't answer. He was breathing hard, gasping like he was having one of his weirdo visions. When Dean struggled out of bed, flailed his way across the room and grabbed his brother, Sam was damp with sweat.

That was when Sam pulled out the earbuds and clutched at Dean asking frantically "What is it, Dean, what's wrong?"  
The white-hot flare of panic died down instantly to a glowing coal of pissed-off.  
"What the hell?" Dean stepped back to take Sam in. "Are you wearing shorts?"

Jogging. Sam had been jogging. Sam. Jogging. Also? It was 6 am and there was no coffee.  
Dean officially hated Sam's iPod.

***  
Dean limped doggedly on under Sam’s weight; he just had to get them to the car and they’d be okay. There was a gash about four inches long in his right leg and Dean could feel it opening up each time he put his boot down, but it was Sam he was worried about. He was stumbling along alarmingly, with one arm thrown across Dean’s shoulders for support while the other, which might well have been broken again, clutched desperately at his side where he was split from ribs to navel.

Sam had lost a lot of blood, and he was pale in the feeble gleam of the Impala’s interior lights. Dean rummaged fretfully in the glove box for an ID with health insurance, but Sam kept insisting that Dean could patch him up.

“Lemme see.” Dean said gently, and he carefully lifted Sam’s thin cotton t-shirt. Sam hissed as the fabric pulled away from the wound, and grabbed reflexively at his side. “Sammy, you gotta – “ Dean took a breath, staying calm. Sam’s entire left side was covered in blood. “I gotta look, man, let go.” Sam gritted his teeth and let Dean pull his hand away by the wrist. Dean fought off a wave of nausea. The bleeding really did seem to have stopped, and Sam didn’t show any signs of losing consciousness, but this could easily take 60 stitches.

"You can take care of this, Dean." Sam ground out, for the umpteenth time. "I'm ok. Really."  
"Ok my ass." But Dean didn’t want to risk the ER any more than Sam did – it was bound to be full of housewives who religiously watched America’s Most Wanted cradling toddlers with M&Ms jammed up their nostrils. Maybe even the odd cop bringing in a traffic accident or shooting victim. Dean let out a string of choice cuss words and drove them back to the motel so fast Sam actually raised a bloodied hand to cover his eyes.

***

“Ok, last one. Go.” Dean held his breath as he pushed the three final stitches through and clipped the thread in one fluid motion. Sam’s teeth were bared and clenched against the jab of the needle, but Dean wasn’t sure who was wincing more. He remembered learning to do this on Dad, wide-eyed and fascinated with the realization that you could just _sew a person back together._ But doing this to Sam always made Dean feel vaguely sick, and not-so-vaguely shaky, which was a problem when you needed a steady hand. Waving off Sam’s panted words of thanks, Dean taped a clean gauze pad over his handiwork. He had already cleaned off most of the blood, but stitches would always pull and bleed a little, especially since Sammy could never stay put in his sleep.

“Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.”  
"Yep. You called it – thanks –“ Sam stretched out the hand that wasn’t wrapped in several layers of bandages to accept the two ibuprofen tablets Dean passed him. “I sure seem to have shitty luck with zombies." Sam was sitting up gingerly, trying for a wry smile, and there was no logic behind what Dean said next.  
"Luck has nothing to do with it Sammy, you were slow." He just kind of heard it come out, like someone beside him was saying it – "It's that music you've been listening to."

"What?”  
And Dean knew what was coming, knew it as sure as he knew the look that was making itself at home on his brother’s face. Sam was preparing for an argument. It wasn’t his lawyer face, that he put on when he had a string of evidence to calmly steamroll Dean into a corner with. It wasn’t the hard, blazing stare he used to sport in an all-out confrontation with Dad. It was an expression Dean had only ever seen Sam use with him, the angry but wounded look of a cornered wild animal, prepared to give this fight his all. In the next few minutes Sam could say anything, and mean it. He could completely throw open the floodgates on all the dark and disturbing thoughts that were no doubt behind all the brooding he’d been doing the past week, and Dean was pretty sure there was some of it he really, really didn’t want to hear.

“That doesn't come close to making sense, Dean. Hell, it's not even in the same zip code,” Sam slurred a little through the codeine Dean had already given him, washed down almost an hour ago now with a couple belts of whiskey from his flask. “I screwed up, got sloppy. Fine. But you can't blame this on the kind of music I happen to like – which I've listened to for years now, by the way. This isn't new, Dean."  
"You about done?” Dean asked, knowing that Sam wasn’t. “I don't care if it's the music, I don't care what it is. You're not yourself, Sam. Look at you. You're slacking off on research, you're – you're jogging, for chrissakes, and you've been eating like some kind of…"  
"Like you?"  
"I'm serious. You're distracted, distant, lethargic in a fight -- even more mopey than usual. Ever since you heard from that Becky girl, you've been off."  
"Becky? Is that the problem, Dean? You're jealous?"  
Dean was pretty sure they'd had this fight already. "Jealous?" He injected as much disbelief into his tone as possible. Jealous? **That’s just plain stupid.** "Of what, your wrist-slitting soundtrack machine?"  
"Dean..."  
"Go clean up," Dean interrupted, "You smell like barbecued zombie."  
Sam huffed in exasperation, and Dean could feel Sam's stare on his back as he determinedly took his time packing up the first aid kit. This was an example of one of those things you could trust Sam not to just let go. But then he snatched up his ruined t-shirt, stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door. Dean abandoned his packing - he hadn't even cleaned his own cuts yet - and sat down heavily on Sam's bed with his head between his hands. Dean was jealous of Sam’s wrist-slitting soundtrack machine.

 _"Hey," Dean said, already uncomfortably full of cheese, but still eating because Sam hadn't stopped yet either. "You remember your 7th birthday?"  
"Which one was that, the tuna casserole?" Sam chuckled a little as he speared another cube of bread with an absurdly long fork.  
"Campbell's soup."  
"Vaguely." Sam pushed his skewered bread chunk into the pot. "Mostly, I remember balloons."  
Dean nodded. "We made up those games, after dinner."  
"Keep-up." Sam was smiling in earnest now. It was good to see, and Dean laughed. He'd almost forgotten Sammy had dimples.  
"We had about 7 balloons in the air, and none of them were supposed to touch the ground."  
"Then you tended goal while I tried to shoot 'em under the table."  
"You even got a couple by me."  
"I got, like, six by you!" Sam's mouth fell open in indignation. Which was gross, because there was bread and cheese in it.  
"It was your birthday, I went easy on ya."  
Sam rolled his eyes, but he was still grinning. "You busted one of them while Dad was cleaning his gun."  
Dean laughed at the memory. "He heard the bang and damn-near jumped out of his skin."  
"Man, he yelled." Sam said, in tones of wry admiration, "Said we'd wake up the whole motel."_

 _Dean smiled, but let the conversation lapse into silence. It was still new, talking about Dad this way, like he was a memory not a man. There was nothing else to say, anyway. After Dad had given them a dressing-down, Sam had asked if there was really anyone else staying at the motel, and wouldn't Dad wake them up too, yelling like that? Dean had hushed him up, though, before Dad could hear him, and they'd made it through one birthday without a hollering match. At 11, Dean considered the evening one of his greater accomplishments; alongside one poltergeist and a pair of Black Dogs.  
_  
It had been four days since he and Sam had exchanged more than six words that weren't part of an argument. Dean just wanted his little brother back.

**

 _  
Now and then, a telepathic demon could say something that really messed with your head. Even if you were ready for it. Even if you knew they were liars and that reading your mind is just plain cheating. Even then, they could still fuck your shit up. That’s why they were demons.  
_

 _During the Shatner years, there was one in the body of a pretty young bar-tender with spiky dark hair and a pierced nose. Normally, Dean didn’t go in for the Wynona Ryder look, but there was something about the big doe-eyes and willowy charm that Dean had found sort of sweet. Right up until those eyes turned liquid black and she started throwing beer bottles at his head with no hands._

 _When he’d finally gotten her cornered and started the exorcism, that’s when she’d gotten nasty. Dean could hear her spitting and cursing between lines of latin. One of the phrases that made it through was “…just a matter of time, and no one will even miss you. Daddy? And smart little Sammy? Won’t even know you’re gone.”_

 _Dean had never told Sam that it wasn’t just the search for Dad that had brought Dean back to Palo Alto._

 __“Do you even sleep with that damn thing on?” Dean asked the ceiling. The complete lack of response from the bed next to his was answer enough for him. “Look man…Sammy.” Dean said into the darkness anyway, “You asked what this is really about and it’s…I just miss the sound of your fuckin’ voice, alright?”

**

 _  
Dean had tried to break all the balloons the next morning so he could fit them in the trash, but Sam wouldn't let him. His arms were already too damn long at 7, and he clung to Dean, pinning both his arms to his sides.  
"No, Dean! They're mine."  
Dean's mouth opened and shut. He decided against pointing out who had paid for them, but Sammy got it anyway.  
"They're my birthday present."  
Dean wanted to argue, to reason with Sam, explain that they were leaving anyway and they had to get rid of them. But Sam's voice had that dangerous wobble to it again, and Dean felt oddly helpless. Then he got an idea.  
_

 _When Dad came out of the bathroom, hair still wet from his shower, he found his sons sitting cross-legged on the last little island of visible floor space, determinedly blowing up the rest of the package of balloons.  
"What're you two doin'?" He asked, wading toward them through the riot of garish rubber spheres. "C'mon now, we gotta hit the road."  
"I'm leaving my balloons here." Sam matter-of-facted back. "Then the next people who come in can have a party too."  
"Figure it'll give the maid a laugh, anyway." Dean shrugged, but he was watching his father's face closely, bracing for the reprimand._

 _It was like standing in a field and watching the shadow roll over the grass toward you like a wave, as days' worth of cloud slid back overhead and left you bathed in sunlight. Dad smiled. Then he laughed. Honest-to-god laughed and cleared himself a spot on the floor to sit down next to Sammy._

 __  
_  
“It was Dean’s idea.” Sammy said, his big dark eyes alight with little-brother admiration. “Smart, huh Dad?”  
“Of course, both my boys are.” Dad reached out a hand and ruffled Dean’s hair.  
“Dad!” Dean complained. He mashed his darkening blond hair back down with one hand, but he couldn’t stop grinning as their father took the package and blew up the last balloon himself.  
_

 _“Alright now, get movin’.”  
Dean did as he was told, made his way to the bed where he’d packed up all of his and Sammy’s things, and grabbed their bags. Dad hoisted Sam up onto his shoulder, and Dean followed as he forged a path to the door. They turned and took one last look at Sam’s balloons before Dad laughed one more time and shut the door behind them._

 __  
They weren't even 3 hours out of Raleigh when Sam reached over and actually turned _up_ the volume on Van Halen.  
"What's the matter, pod child?" Dean shouted, competing with Sammy Hagar, "Batteries dead already?"  
Sam shut his eyes, as if Dean couldn't tell he was rolling them under the lids. He turned the tape deck back down.  
"I put my iPod away 180 miles back, Dean. I've been listening to your oblivious ass sing karaoke for the last hour and a half."  
"Don't like it, you know what you can do." Dean bobbed his fist in an obscene gesture. Sam didn't respond, just flipped him off – held it for a good 6 seconds while he looked the other way out the passenger window. Dean had missed this. He could feel himself grinning like a giant doofus as he rifled through the jewel cases in the shoebox next to him.  
"You're changing the tape now? This is, like, the third track."  
"Rule are rules," Dean recited. "If you're gonna sulk, you may as well just plug yourself back in to the Matrix, Neo." Sam was shaking his head why-do-I-bother, shaggy chestnut hair falling in his eyes. "I thought you hated OU812."  
Sam shrugged. "It's a change. Becky's mix got a bit too emo after a while."  
"Wow, Sammy. I feel like I should toss some holy water at you. What's next, you gonna get a real haircut on me, or something?" That did it. Sam turned and looked at Dean. Fixed him with that all-too-familiar youareanunbeleiveablepaininmyass stare.  
"You're a riot, Dean. Maybe you should take a tip from your pal Randy Rhoads and be _quiet_."  
"Aw, c'mon Sammy." Dean was grinning so hard his cheeks hurt now, and he pushed it, "I mean, that hair is so emo it should cut itself."  
"God," Sam huffed through an open smile, as he snatched up the overflowing shoebox and began sliding the cases back into neat rows, "You're such an asshole."  
"I love it when you call me God." **Yahtzee.  
** "You know, I'm almost starting to miss the tone-deaf singing."  
Dean's smart-ass reply was cut short as Sam repeated, “Almost.” and cranked the volume again, so he settled for belting out the chorus at the top of his lungs.

Beside him, Sam said something that might have been “It’s no big deal, you jerk. I just missed the sound of your fuckin’ voice, alright?” Then he closed his eyes, and tipped his head back against the headrest. And just like that, Sammy was back.

  
___________________

Persnickett, July 2007 

 

 


End file.
